The question of the origin of totemism has more than the merely curious or antiquarian interest of an historic or prehistoric mystery. In the course of the inquiry we may be able to discern and discriminate the relative contributions of unreflecting passion, on one hand, and of deliberate reason, on the other, to the structure of the earliest extant form of human society.

The word 'Totem' is taken from the language of a tribe living near Lake Superior, in North America. It signifies the symbol or device of a gens or tribal division, that by which it is distinguished from all other such divisions. The kind of objects used as totems by the aborigines of North America may be seen from the names of the gentes into which the Ojibwa tribe is divided. These are twenty-three in number, and the totemic devices belonging to them comprise nine quadrupeds (the chief of which are the Wolf, the Bear, the Beaver, and the Turtle), eight birds, five fishes, and one reptile, the snake. There are numerous other totems among the American tribes, and they are not taken from the animal kingdom only...

Totem and Totemism - Origin and Theories

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Is there any human institution which can be safely called "Totemism"? Is there any possibility of defining, or even describing Totemism? Is it legitimate-is it even possible, with due regard for "methodology" and logic-to seek for the "normal" form of Totemism, and to trace it through many Protean changes, produced by various causes, social and speculative? I think it possible to discern the main type of Totemism, and to account for divergences.

Totemism

The archaeologist studies human life in its material remains; he tracks progress (and occasional degeneration) from the rudely chipped flints in the ancient gravel beds, to the polished stone weapon, and thence to the ages of bronze and iron. He is guided by material "survivals"-ancient arms, implements, and ornaments. The student of Institutions has a similar method. He finds his relics of the uncivilised past in agricultural usages, in archaic methods of allotment of land, in odd marriage customs, things rudimentary-fossil relics, as it were, of an early social and political condition. The archaeologist and the student of Institutions compare these relics, material or customary, with the weapons, pottery, implements, or again with the habitual law and usage of existing savage or barbaric races, and demonstrate that our weapons and tools, and our laws and manners, have been slowly evolved out of lower conditions, even out of savage conditions.

The anthropological method in mythology is the same. In civilised religion and myth we find rudimentary survivals, fossils of rite and creed, ideas absolutely incongruous with the environing morality, philosophy, and science of Greece and India. Parallels to these things, so out of keeping with civilisation, we recognise in the creeds and rites of the lower races, even of cannibals; but there the creeds and rites are not incongruous with their environment of knowledge and culture. There they are as natural and inevitable as the flint-headed spear or marriage by capture. We argue, therefore, that religions and mythical faiths and rituals which, among Greeks and Indians, are inexplicably incongruous have lived on from an age in which they were natural and inevitable, an age of savagery.

Modern Mythology

After the heavy rain of a thunderstorm has washed the soil, it sometimes happens that a child, or a rustic, finds a wedge-shaped piece of metal or a few triangular flints in a field or near a road. There was no such piece of metal, there were no such flints, lying there yesterday, and the finder is puzzled about the origin of the objects on which he has lighted. He carries them home, and the village wisdom determines that the wedge-shaped piece of metal is a "thunderbolt, " or that the bits of flint are "elf-shots, " the heads of fairy arrows. Such things are still treasured in remote nooks of England, and the "thunderbolt" is applied to cure certain maladies by its touch.

As for the fairy arrows, we know that even in ancient Etruria they were looked on as magical, for we sometimes see their points set, as amulets, in the gold of Etruscan necklaces. In Perugia the arrowheads are still sold as charms. All educated people, of course, have long been aware that the metal wedge is a celt, or ancient bronze axe-head, and that it was not fairies, but the forgotten peoples of this island who used the arrows with the tips of flint. Thunder is only so far connected with them that the heavy rains loosen the surface soil, and lay bare its long hidden secrets.

Folklore and Mythology

When this book first appeared, the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological position was the "ghost theory" of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the "Animistic" theory of Mr. E. R. Tylor, according to whom the propitiation of ancestral and other spirits leads to polytheism, and thence to monotheism. In the second edition of this work the author argued that the belief in a "relatively supreme being, " anthropomorphic was as old as, and might be even older, than animistic religion.

Rituals, Myths and Religions

Il Libro Blu delle Fate di Andrew Lang, raccolta composta e pubblicata nel 1898 dal folclorista ed erudito inglese, racchiude in sé alcune delle più belle suggestioni favolistiche della storia. Dalla favola originale che ha ispirato La Bella e La Bestia, a favole scozzesi tradotte per la prima volta in italiano, questo libro condurrà grandi e piccoli in un affascinante viaggio alle radici della cultura e della nostra immaginazione.

IL LIBRO BLU DELLE FATE

Il y avait une fois un jeune roi nommé Souci, qui fut élevé par la fée Girouette ; sans cesse elle passait d’un avis à un autre, d’un sentiments à un désir ; d’une volonté déterminée à un doute ; ainsi rien ne pouvait être fixe dans sa conduite, et par conséquent dans une cour où elle était maîtresse absolue…

Le bal des douze princesses & autres contes

Soit un homme sage n'entrera pas dans les bunkers, soit, en étant, il supportera des choses qui lui arrivent avec patience.

Parmi les diverses formes de science qui atteignent et affectent la nouvelle tradition populaire, nous avons compté l'Anthropologie. Assez agréablement, l'Anthropologie elle-même n'a elle-même que récemment émergé de ces limbes du non reconnu dans lequel la Recherche Psychique se languit.

Il utilise les statistiques comme un homme ivre utilise des lampadaires - pour le soutien plutôt que pour l'éclairage.

Encore une fois, s'il n'y a vraiment pas de fées, pourquoi les gens croient-ils en elles, partout dans le monde ? Les anciens Grecs croyaient, tout comme les anciens Égyptiens, les Hindous et les Peaux-Rouges, et est-il probable, s'il n'y avait pas de fées, que tant de peuples différents les auraient vues et entendues ?

. Mais là où il n'y a pas de protection, les filets, le poison, la dynamite, le massacre des alevins et les appâts impurs dévastent les poissons, de sorte que la "pêche libre" signifie pas de pêche du tout.

Il a raté une opportunité inestimable de tenir sa langue.

Je suis le batteur et la batte, / Je suis le joueur de bowler et le ballon, / l'arbitre, le chat pavillon, / le rouleau, le tangage et les souches, et tout.

Un livre est un ami dont le visage change constamment. Si vous le lisez lorsque vous vous remettez d'une maladie et que vous y revenez des années après, il est sûrement changé, avec le changement en vous-même.

Je ne pense pas que l'idée de l'homosexualité soit vraiment taboue. Notre culture évolue. C'est une période passionnante pour vivre.

De toutes les créatures mineures de la mythologie, les fées sont les plus belles, les plus nombreuses, les plus mémorables.

Les jeunes hommes, en particulier en Amérique, m'écrivent et me demandent de recommander «un cours de lecture». Méfiant un cours de lecture! Les gens qui se soucient vraiment des livres les lisent tous. Il n'y a pas d'autre cours.

La vie est plus amusante que nous ne le pensions.

Les politiciens utilisent des statistiques de la même manière qu'un ivrogne utilise des poteaux de lampes pour le soutien plutôt que l'éclairage.

Pourquoi devrais-je rire? demanda le vieil homme. «La folie dans la jeunesse est une vraie sagesse. Allez, jeune homme, suivez votre rêve, et si vous ne trouvez pas le bonheur que vous cherchez, vous aurez en tout cas le bonheur de le chercher.

Je quitterais toute la hâte, le bruit et la mêlée, pour une maison pleine de livres et un jardin de fleurs.

De tous les animaux, le chat seul atteint la vie comtémplative. Il considère la roue de l'existence de l'extérieur, comme le Bouddha.

O accorde-moi une maison au bord de la plage d'une baie, où les vagues peuvent être sournoises en hiver, et jouer avec la mer en été, les pouvoirs abondants! Et je quitterais toute la hâte, le bruit et la mêlée, pour une maison pleine de livres et un jardin de fleurs.

De tous les animaux, lui seul atteint la vie contemplative.

Il y a une joie sans chancre ni cark, il y a un plaisir éternellement nouveau: «Il s'agit de se réjouir sur la glaçure et la marque de Chine qui est ancienne et bleue.

Vous pouvez couvrir beaucoup de pays dans des livres.

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